Yearning for Blue Skies (Sutherlin, OR)

2020 just keeps on giving. To all my friends being battered by tropical storms and hurricanes, I hope you and your families are safely tucked away from Sally and the storms that are following in her wake.  In the meantime, I am also hoping our west coast friends with homes in the wildfire's path are safe.

September started out with some unusually hot weather.  We have been sticking close to home due to the hot weather and our power being unpredictable.  We did not want to come home to roasted cats after being gone all day.  With temps rising into the 90s, we spent the early morning taking walks around the RV park or grocery shopping.  Usually by 9 am, it was already getting on the warm side and a good time to sit outside with the cats until we lost our shade in the early afternoon.  It sounds boring, but I have been enjoying our quiet times.

On one of my walks, I came across this doe and her fawn.  Neither one was worried about me walking nearby.

The cats were certainly enjoying our beautiful weather.  As you can see below how they were taking advantage of their time spent outdoors.

Tired Dusty

I spent most of my outdoor time reading, talking to neighbors, and working on my quilt.  Doesn't Max look impressed?

The Beast is sleeping

One evening last week, we took a short evening walk.  I noticed the sunset was an unusual hazy red.  I thought of the old sailor's adage: 

Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning

Red sky at night, sailor's delight

I guess that only works at sea because our red sunset was due to wildfire smoke from a fire north of us.  The next thing we knew we were being told there was a new wildfire about 10 miles (as the crow flies) east of us in Guild, OR.  As the day progressed, the sky became darker as the wind blew the fire in our direction.

Day 1

We were asked to prep for evacuation as the smoke turned our world yellow.  Several of the Escapees decided not to wait for evacuation orders and left early.  Yesterday after a week of monitoring warnings, our Level 1 was downgraded to normal, but for some evacuated Sutherlin residents living in the eastern areas, there will be no home to return to. 

Day 1

If you wondering why we did not pack up and leave the area, it is because we need to stay here.  Dan will be starting radiation treatment for prostate cancer for the next 2 months in Roseburg.  He had three appointments this week for consulting and prepping for his upcoming treatments.

Day 2 & 3

For more than a week we have been monitoring our alert links and watching the local news.  The Archie Creek fire stopped moving east thanks to the winds dying down.  This is good news for everyone with homes and businesses in its path, but no wind means the smoke is still hanging around.

Large pieces of ash

I honestly found it easier to do a 14-day quarantine than hiding away from hazardous smoke in our closed up coach.  At least, we could open windows, take walks, or sit outside.  Now, we try to keep our outdoor time limited because the air quality index is way beyond the hazardous level.  Very Unhealthy is 201 to 300 ppm.  Most of western Oregon has been off the charts with 400+ due to the thick smoke.  We have KN95 masks, but I still limit my time outdoors.  I just got my COPD under control with an inhaler.  I really don't want to backslide to how I was feeling last year.  

Next door neighbor's site

Thank you to all Firefighters who are risking their lives and working 24/7 to keep our community safe and the wildfires contained.

Now, if we can just explain this to our cats who are suffering from cabin fever.  Dusty especially doesn't understand why he can't do his usual 2-hour outside cat nap.  If it is raining or gusty winds, all we have to do is let him step outside.  He gets the hint and comes right back in.  Yep, that big furry baby is a fair-weather only kind of cat.😸  But smoke?  How do you explain it isn't safe to breathe?  Yea, he is not a happy camper right now. 😾  Max and Hitch are happy no matter what they do that day as long as they get fed and their share of attention.

As I finish writing this post, the sky is starting to clear.  I saw the sun for the first time in eight days and the wind is picking up a little from the west blowing east.  With some luck, the wind might blow the fire back into the burn-area.  

On The Cutting Board

I am still working on my southwest quilt, but I don't have any new photos except for this one taken 10 days ago.

One of our last days outdoors.

I'm hoping by the time I post again, I will have a couple of rows sewed together.

Happy Quilting and Please Stay Safe!

It's Beginning to Feel Like Home (Sutherlin, OR)

We are back in Timber Valley Skp (Escapees Co-Op) Park in Sutherlin, OR and I am surprised to admit that it is beginning to feel like home.  We are #14 on the waiting list for a Timber Valley site.  We were #80 in August of last year, so we have moved up faster than planned.  We should have a site by this time next year at the latest, giving us a place to stay - a home base.   We will still travel in the future, but have our own site here as a home base.  After 11 years of wandering around the country, I am looking forward to having a place to call home.   

We have already established our doctors and dentists with annual checkups.  Next, we will get our cats a veterinarian.  They all need a checkup.  Shhh!  Mum's the word!

What did you say?

This comes at a good time. We were starting to notice a couple of years ago that it was getting harder to make reservations for more than two weeks during high-seasons.  Even the military FamCamps stay busy during their high-seasons.  Some are first come first serve while others have a reservation system.  

The first site before owners returned

We have spent some of our time in offseason areas by going south during the summer or to the northwest coast for the winter.  Staying in half-filled to almost empty RV parks was great, but that can get challenging while traveling through bad weather or dealing with heatwaves for long periods of time. 

Deer watching Dan work on our coach

This year, RV sales skyrocketed due to the lockdown.  Families are finding it easier to pack up kids along with pets into their own rigs traveling to their favorite getaway spots.  No hassles with waiting for flights or hotel reservations.  And that's great, but there are so many more RV sales and not enough campgrounds to accommodate the sudden interest in the RV lifestyle.

Our second site with a creek behind us.

At this time, there are very few new campgrounds being built and existing ones are not expanding, causing many to be booked up to a year in advance.  Not to mention that many RV parks are now doing short and long term leases to people that are only present during the weekends - if that - leaving travelers with slim pickings for available sites, especially with our 40ft coach. 

Cats enjoying their outdoor time

Dan spent weeks looking for RV parks with more than a week opening when we started traveling north this year. As soon as the lockdown ended, most opened RV parks were booked solid every weekend or worse for the whole summer with only a few scattered days left for travelers.

Our neighbor's site with Gert the Goat

Definitely great news for RV business profits!  I am hoping this will encourage small business owners to build more campgrounds across the nation.

Street views of the park

Please understand that I'm not complaining.  I'm just explaining why we will not be traveling as much in the future which I'm already starting to miss because there are so many places I would like to see again.

Summertime blooms in the Timber Valley

We do plan to keep traveling, but it will be more structured and planned in advance.  No more spontaneous travel plans of "which way shall we go this week" and "hey! this sounds interesting, let's go this way and stay a week or two".

Love the color and the fence

 So, you are probably wondering why we picked this area for a home base. This part of Oregon is green with lot's of animals wandering around.  Sutherlin is working hard to maintain their small town, and Roseburg is nearby for shopping trips as well.   There are also many Thousand Trails and Oregon state parks to travel to for getaways in Oregon.  This Skp co-op is on I-5 south of Eugene  and just north of Roseburg.

 You probably noticed that our site looks a little bare from the above photos.  Each site comes with full-hook-ups, a shed, and a concrete patio. Park leaseholders manage and run the park, with only a few employees. Leaseholder committees and volunteer groups do much of the maintenance and daily work in the park.

 A bare site will more than likely be our first site.  They tend to be a transit site and are often on the list for travelers to rent for short periods of time since their owners are still on the road or in this case they are still working and have a house.  We can trade to a more developed or better-located site as soon as one becomes available that others do not want.  We will be at the bottom of the trading list that is based on how long the leaseholder has been in this park.    

A family of turkey come for a visit

I'm already scoping out other people's developed sites, taking mental notes of what I like about their landscaping.  

Tired Dusty

The sites on either side of us have gardens and patios.  I really like the site with Gert the Goat.  The owner has kept her area simple and yet cool and inviting with bark instead of rocks, plenty of plants/flowers, and a wood deck.  We know her site is kitty-approved because ours keep going over for visits. 

On The Cutting Board

I'm still focusing on getting my SW quilt done.  No side distractions!  I'm so proud of myself.  Usually, by this time, I have started two new projects.  It is a slow process and of course, my mistakes are slowing me down especially when I discovered one major mistake that included a lot of ripping out seams. 

Wrong order - dark alternate block in the center

In my last post, I showed my first finished row (above).  All blocks quilted with front and back seams sewed together.  I realized my mistake when I started my second row.  I had my alternate blocks in the wrong order!  After separating the blocks, I used our bed to layout the whole quilt in the correct order and number the rows.  This became quite a challenge with cats wanting to help by rearranging my work.

Correct layout - dark alternate first

My next problem was backing.  I had bought this fabric backing for a different quilt top for our bed.  The old quilt top wasn't going to be big enough for the bed in our new coach.  I'm happy to say that I had just enough to cover all the blocks with a 4x18 inch piece left!  Whew!  

Basting Hummingbird block

I decided to sandwich then baste all the blocks and stack them all in the correct order.  Now I have this huge pile of blocks sitting in the living room.  

All blocks sandwiched and basted

It does keep me motivated to get them all quilted! 

Kokopeli

I'm quilting each block in the correct order and I plan to wait until the blocks are done before I start sewing them together.

Hand design for center quilting

Most of the quilting is in the ditch.  For non-quilters - I am quilting close to the seams.  I'm keeping the sashing designs simple for fast and easy work.

Second alternate block

Alternate block

I'm feeling better about my work-in-progress!  I'm halfway through the pile.  With any luck and no more major setbacks, I hope to post photos of the blocks sewed together....at least a couple of rows.

Happy Quilting!

Back On The Open Road (Albuquerque, NM)

This has been a busy month for us.  We have been traveling south from Oregon while visiting a few of our favorite stops and a couple of new ones.  We managed to avoid severe weather while traveling.

Valley of the Rogue River

We are in Albuquerque, NM until Saturday when the latest cold front finally fizzles out and then it is on to Texas for the winter.  So, I have several posts to do with photos.

So, back in Oregon, we learned that the paved path inside the Valley of the Rogue River State Park is being extended 30 miles from Central Point to Grants Pass and connecting to the Bear Creek Greenway which will add another 20 miles.  When the Rogue River Greenway is completed, the 50-mile path will connect 8 cities in southern Oregon encouraging people to use the path for health, travel, and recreation.  The best part, users will not have to worry about vehicles except when crossing roads.

We visited Jacksonville during our stay in the state park.  We walked a few of the streets, window shopping and enjoyed the peacefulness of the downtown area.

Jacksonville, OR

I have seen Mt. Shasta so many times in the past ten years and I never tire of the view.  Such a gorgeous sight to see as we drive down I-5.

Mt. Shasta

We decided on a different route this time.  Instead of our usual route through California on I-5, we decided to go through Nevada for a change of scenery and what a change!  After a night in one of Reno's casino parking lots, we headed south on US 6/95.  Talk about the open road and no traffic!  

Dan found online an overnight rest stop for travelers, but not for commercial truckers at Miller's Rest Area near Tonopah, NV.  We were the first to park for the evening.  The cats enjoyed exploring the area while I enjoyed the views.  So much open space!  By sunset, there were several recreational vehicles parked near us.

Sunset and sunrise at Miller's Rest Area

Next stop, Las Vegas!  

I wish we had been here
 to see this cactus bloom.

Actually Nellis AFB, but we did get out a couple of times for lunch buffets, plus we visited Red Rock Canyon and Hoover Dam.  I'll save those photos for the next post.

Nellis AFB FamCamp

I think we wore out the cats from all the traveling.  

Max and Dusty

Don't they look comfortable?

Happy Quilting!

From A to Zzzz (Sutherlin, OR)

First, I want to let everyone know that the kayak owner's insurance finally paid for our damages as well as to the Tesla owner.  It only took them six weeks and a lot of emails to get them to pay, but Dan and N were diligent in getting them to admit the kayak owner was at fault, not the rack company.

View of Columbia River

We will be spending the winter having the coach fiberglass repaired and the paint touched up.  In the meantime, I have photos of our walk to Starvation Falls while we were staying in Viento State Park in July.  We were able to walk from our park to the next park on a paved trail that looked like an old road.  This made for a pleasant walk on the hillside just above the highway, but we could still hear the traffic from below.  Not so much the joy of listening to the wind or singing birds in the trees as much as the engines zooming by. 🤣🐦

Starvation Falls got its name when a train full of people became snowbound during the winter of 1884.  It sounds like the beginnings of a tragic story, but this one ends with everyone living.

They ran out of food and coal, but passengers and crew managed with what they had or could find in the nearby forest to keep warm.

With help from the locals, and male passengers risking a dangerous trek through the deep snow to bring food to the snowbound train, the passengers were able to survive for three weeks inside the train.  Passengers and crew admitted to being very cold and feeling starved but were happy to be able to live to tell their story.

Back to Sutherlin, OR at the Timber Valley Escapees RV Park.  Both Dan and I have been busy with annual check-ups with our doctors and dentists.  On quiet days, we have been enjoying the wildlife in the park.

Our next-door neighbor has an Asian pear tree that all the animals love to eat.   The jackrabbits are there every morning for breakfast.  This is the first time I have been able to get this close to them.

The squirrels usually don't stick around to eat their fruit.  We get the feeling that they don't like to hang out with the rabbits except for this guy.  He decided that he wanted a breakfast with a view and sat on the planter next to the yellow roses.

All sites back up to a green common area with grass and trees.  Dusty enjoys this area. 

We spend half our time following him to the back.  He has become quite a tree hugger lately! 

On The Cutting Board

All done from A to Zzzz!  Well, the embroidery is all done.  Now I need to spend time trimming down the blocks.

Then I need to embroider the seams and decide on a border or no border.

Plus a backing.  Hmmm, maybe I'm celebrating too early, but it still feels like a big accomplishment.

Okay, back to the cutting board for more planning.
Happy Quilting!